General Elections 76 – 15 October 2019
Many polling stations with no voters are being reported in urban areas of Gaza province, including Xai-Xai and Bilene, by observers and our correspondents. These are the areas with the 300,000 extra registered voters – the places where the number of voters vastly exceeds the number of voting-age adults. It appears that the ghost voters have their own polling stations.
Less than 50% turnout predicted
Queues a polling stations at mid-day are a good predictor of turnout. Today there were short or absent queues at most polling stations at 13h00. This suggests a turnout of under 50%. The first two multiparty elections had high turnouts of 88% and 74% of registered voters, but in the three most recent fewer than half of those registered actually voted: 2004 (43%), 2009 (45%), and 2014 (49%).
Both Zambezia and Nampula had some long queues at mid-day, but also with polling stations with only a handful of voters. Sofala is mixed with long mid-day queues at some polling stations in Beira and Buzi but none in Dondo. In Cabo Delgado there were still 40- 60 people in many queues suggesting a higher turnout. Niassa, Manica and Tete also reported some queues of 40-60, but others with no one.
3 provinces block observation
A tiny pile of credentials was handed today, voting day, to the biggest independent observer group, EISA. But 2915 independent observers were never accredited and cannot go into the polling stations tonight to monitor the count, making it easier to commit fraud. A few credentials were issued to EISA this morning – 90 in Nampula and 98 in Zambezia – too late to be distributed to observers in far corners of the provinces.
Three provinces are effectively blocking independent observations. Gaza issued only 16% of the credentials requested by EISA, Zambezia 21% and Tete 39% – too few for an effective observation. Nampula and Sofala issued credentials in the past few days, reaching 63% of the EISA request and allowing some observation. By contrast Niassa, Cabo Delgado, Manica, Inhambane, and Maputo province and city issued 100% of those requested by EISA.
